The storage control systems disclosed in Japanese Patent Applications Laid Open Nos. 2004-22058 and 2004-22059, for example, are known as storage control systems that comprise a plurality of disk drives.
Such storage control systems comprise a basic disk chassis and one or more additional disk chassis. The basic disk chassis comprises a controller, a plurality of disk drives, and a disk connector (port bypass circuit, for example) that connects the controller and the plurality of disk drives. The additional disk chassis are connected downstream of the basic disk chassis Each additional disk chassis comprises a plurality of disk drives, and a disk connector that is connected to the plurality of disk drives. A disk connector in one additional disk chassis is connected to a disk connector in an upstream additional disk chassis (or basic disk chassis). As a result of this constitution, the controller in the basic disk chassis is able to access the desired disk drive via one or more continuously linked disk connectors.
In the conventional storage control system above, when a fault arises with a certain disk connector, there are sometimes cases where access is then no longer possible not only to the plurality of disk drives connected to this disk connector but also to disk drives connected to any disk connector that lies downstream of the disk connector. For this reason, increased reliability of storage control systems is desirable.